Angry Mom: Episode 11

by javabeans

I love it when a team comes together. We’ve already had a lot of solid teamwork in play, but with more people cottoning on, the bigger the inner circle gets. And while Kang-ja has been a fine solo crusader all this while, it’s gratifying to see her acknowledge that she could use some help, and give up some of her mission to share with others. Rather than having her step back, it gives others the chance to step forward, and that results in some rewarding turns.

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EPISODE 11 RECAP

Kang-ja’s secret identity is out, and both Noah and Bok-dong hear it. There’s no misunderstanding it when Dong-chil calls her an ajumma running around wearing a school uniform, and he pokes at her mockingly.

But Noah, after first checking on a battered Bok-dong, steps in and orders Dong-chil to back off his student. He urges Bok-dong up so they can go to the hospital, and Bok-dong freezes in indecision, caught between the teacher who cares and the hyungnim who warns him not to move a muscle. Dong-chil smirks at Noah’s child abuse accusation, saying that the law won’t do anything about it, and that he’s Bok-dong’s legal guardian.

Noah declares, “Is this what you call guardianship? From now on, I will protect this child.” Kang-ja adds that she won’t let him turn Bok-dong into Bum, vowing to protect him.

Dong-chil rages at Bok-dong when he gets up as though to leave. But then he gets down on his knees and says sincerely, “I want to live now too. For feeding, clothing, and sending me to school, thank you.” He bows his head to his hyungnim, then lets the others escort him out.

At the hospital, Noah tries to get all the facts straight regarding Kang-ja’s situation. His sentences are hilariously broken as he starts out with scolding, then tacks on polite endings awkwardly when he remembers to.

Bok-dong pretends to sleep through their exchange as Noah insists she should have dealt with the proper channels and Kang-ja argues that nobody would do anything. When she calls herself a mom, Bok-dong finally gets up with a glare and bursts out, “Mom? Are you an ajumma?! Was it fun for you to toy with me?” He storms out, not giving her a chance to explain.

Gong-joo hears of the growing list of People Who Know Kang-ja’s Secret and is agog, because frankly it’s getting to be a pretty long list. This also means Kang-ja has to speed up her plan to get her evidence before she can leave school. Thankfully, Gong-joo proposes one idea…

Noah talks to his father about Kang-ja’s old case, and hears that she may not have killed anybody. But she never said a word in her defense and there was witness testimony, so the judge had to rule her guilty, though he did give her the minimum punishment.

Listening from the room next door, Bok-dong connects the dots, recalling how she’d told him not to assume the burden of someone else’s crime—she must have been drawing from her own experience.

In his eagerness to eavesdrop, he pushes open the doors accidentally and covers up his embarrassment with gruffness. He mumbles that he’ll only be staying a short while until he can earn money to move out, but the judge welcomes him to make himself at home. Bok-dong, unused to kindness, looks everywhere but at him.

To Noah, he gets worked up asking how Kang-ja could be an ajumma, almost accusingly, like it’s something she did at them. Noah wonders why he’s so upset and corrects how Bok-dong refers to her since she’s actually an adult—older than him by seven years, in fact. Bok-dong quickly does some counting on his fingers and sighs at the math.

Bok-dong does protest when Noah says he’ll be applying for legal foster home status, but only feebly.

Kang-ja returns to school in uniform, and Noah argues with her to withdraw immediately, before her impersonation is discovered. She asks him to turn a blind eye, unmoved by his reminders of school rules—not when there’s a monster on the loose who’s after her daughter and a danger to the kids here. Still in the dark as to Jung-woo’s true nature, Noah doesn’t understand what she’s referring to.

Meanwhile, construction on the school annex building continues, and despite constant efforts to cut corners and lower costs everywhere, Chairman Hong still isn’t happy. He wants them even lower, and Jung-woo assures him he’ll find a way. For what it’s worth, hubby Jin-sang looks uncomfortable and tries to speak up in favor of the proper channels, but he caves to pressure.

Gong-joo’s mysterious plan is revealed when she ambushes the education minister after he gives his speech announcing his presidential bid. Pretending to be a fervent fan, she grabs for him and comes away with a fistful of hair. Ha, the methods are classic Gong-joo: crude but efficient.

Meanwhile, her princess minions get some of Jung-woo’s hair from his comb. They’ll ship the samples off for DNA testing to confirm the rumors of Jung-woo’s secret link to the minister.

Bok-dong visits his brother in prison, and it’s clear that these two have a loving relationship, though not one characterized by free-flowing honesty. Hyung bolts up to see his kid brother’s face beaten up and demands to know who did this to him, swearing that one word to Dong-chil will make sure he isn’t touched again. His faith in his hyungnim is tragically misplaced, but Bok-dong can’t disabuse him of it and just stays quiet, keeping all his hurt inside.

That dynamic goes both ways, and when Bok-dong checks to make sure his hyung is eating well, hyung tries to make his prison stint sound better than it is so he won’t worry. Ah these two! They hurt my heart.

So hyung jumps to the erroneous conclusion that kid bro has gotten tangled up in some trouble, and that his leaving Dong-chil’s care is a sign of impetuousness. He urges Bok-dong to go back to Dong-chil and beg him for forgiveness, just until hyung gets out of the clink.

Bok-dong suppresses all his emotions until the visit is over, and Noah understands. All he says is that it’s okay to cry, and Bok-dong breaks down into sobs. Noah just pats him on the back and tells him it’s okay.

They stop for lunch afterward, and Bok-dong is finally ready to take Kang-ja’s advice and share: He tells Noah, “I didn’t kill her—Yi-kyung.” He gives Jung-woo’s name, and Noah struggles to process this information. He forces a smile and steps aside, waiting until he’s out of earshot for a breakdown of his own.

Noah rages and curses, calling Jung-woo a filthy son of a bitch and swearing, “I’ll get you, Do Jung-woo. No matter what, I’ll get you and lock you up.”

Jung-woo finds out about Bok-dong visiting his brother in prison and worries that he might have talked. Dong-chil assures him that the brother is completely loyal to him and that Bok-dong won’t have said a word. Jung-woo warns him to take care of it.

At school, Noah can’t hide his contempt of Jung-woo and shoots him a glare. But he doesn’t say anything, and for now Jung-woo shakes this off.

Bok-dong is smarting from the revelation of Kang-ja’s identity, and shakes off her arm when she tries to talk to him and apologize for the lie. He asks what she’s sorry for—being a mother?—and threatens to let out her secret if she doesn’t withdraw from school right away.

With all these complications, Kang-ja decides that perhaps it’s better to send Ah-ran to another school after all. The gossip makes its way to Ah-ran via Jung-hee’s two sidekicks—or at least, former sidekicks, since they’re still miffed at Jung-hee for ditching them.

The girls pointedly ignore Jung-hee and head off with Ah-ran—and then the ground gives way from under their feet. A pit literally opens up in the yard, and the girls are stuck in the unstable hole while students run for help. At one point Ah-ran calls out “Mom!” to Kang-ja before catching herself, and covers by pretending she was just calling out a general cry for help.

The three girls are taken to the hospital for their injuries, and the two other mothers are fuming mad when Jung-woo and the vice principal arrive to do damage control.

Kang-ja can’t just join in on the parent-teacher meeting, so she lurks nearby and eavesdrops, taking cover next to a large man. Listening closely, she nods in agreement when the indignant mothers refuse to be bought off… but then Jung-woo slips in the promise for special academic support and accommodations for the girls, and suddenly the mothers are much more amenable. Kang-ja is huffy, but can’t exactly charge in there—and then Noah finds her and drags her off quietly before she’s caught. I’ll just leave these for you here:

Kang-ja is certain Jung-woo’s up to something, and both of them overhear Jung-woo talking to the vice principal about shutting up mouths about that sinkhole. So the administration is aware of a problem and is going to cover it up.

This makes her more determined than ever not to quit school, and she warns Noah not to try stopping her. Yet to her shock, he says he won’t—and moreover, he’s come to the same conclusion. He won’t resign his post after all, but is determined to catch the monster.

She’s surprised that he knows of Jung-woo’s misdeeds, while Noah’s disappointed that she didn’t tell him. Did she trust him so little, even though he was the teacher?

Kang-ja replies that when she’d reacted as he did, Ah-ran had told her she couldn’t do anything about it. She hadn’t trusted anyone to help her then, but now she knows she can’t do this alone. And so, she asks Noah, “Help me, Teacher.”

“As much as you need,” he replies. “Whenever you need it.”

With that, Noah joins Team Princess. Yay! They reconvene at princess central, where Kang-ja checks in with her husband about his construction project, and can tell from his voice that he’s lying about the sinkhole having anything to do with their work.

That night, they sneak onto the construction premises (with Gong-joo in appropriately black princesswear) for some recon. Noah insists on going, and blunders his way in with one very ungainly somersault, and yelping at the sight of mice.

Inside, they’re shocked to find that the walls in the new construction are literally cracked and crumbling. They snap photos before getting a glimpse of someone else on the site, who runs away when they follow.

The team manages to apprehend the lurker, and work the story out of him. He’s the subcontractor foreman, and he’s been stealing steel materials because as it turns out, this multimillion-dollar contract has failed to actually cough up any cash for its construction. Something doesn’t add up.

Ae-yeon has spent the day running around doing damage control about the sinkhole, and can’t believe Jung-woo can be so calm in the middle of crisis. But he’s figured out away to walk away with clean hands—instead of letting the minister and chairman walk away rich while he takes the fall, he’s going to protect his own neck first. He’ll do this by disavowing responsibility for the project and standing on his “conscience”—he’ll just be the guy left to clean up other people’s corruption.

Ae-yeon warns that they won’t escape unscathed, but he replies that you can’t go to war expecting no injury. He knows the minister is nervous, and Ae-yeon has been tasked with finding that mysterious thing his mother left him.

The next move for Team Princess is to stop construction from proceeding any further, and one way to do that is to rally all the school mothers into raising an uproar. They’ll meet with them secretly and arrange a meeting.

On their way back they run into Bok-dong, who’s waiting outside while muttering to himself, “She’s only an ajumma. She’s old! She’s way older than me!” Aw, poor boy. When he spies Kang-ja, he stammers that he didn’t come here for her, barking that he only came to get Noah, whose father is worried.

Not that his puppy-dog crush goes undetected; Gong-joo figures it out and sighs that she’s envious of Kang-ja. Aren’t we all.

Bok-dong bangs his head on the bus window on the ride back, wiping quickly at his tears.

Over the next couple days, Noah meets with the school mothers and informs them of the shoddy construction being undertaken, presenting them with his findings. Gong-joo and Kang-ja do the same, making passionate arguments for stepping in and making their voices heard.

The mothers’ reactions are united in their shock and horror, but they’re also hesitant to do anything that might backfire on them or their kids. Team Princess asks them all to show up at school to meet in two days, and from then all they can do is hope their message got through.

Jung-hee does her part by taking on a revenge mission of her own on behalf of her friends. At a PC room, she marshals a group of kids into writing comments online about the sinkhole, the bad construction, and the school administration.

The chairman hears of this and orders Ae-yeon to track down all the IP addresses and slap them all with defamation suits. And for once, Sang-tae speaks up to contradict his father, pointing out that what’s being said is not untrue. He calls the victims his friends, only to have his father retort that there’s no such thing as friends, and that people always backstab you.

When the day of the appointed meeting rolls around, it’s only Kang-ja and Noah there at the construction site, and they watch the clock in disappointment. Then Dong-chil shows up with his workers and orders them to clear out, ready to remove them forcibly.

This escalates into a scuffle and Kang-ja gets knocked aside while Dong-chil orders the foreman to keep going with construction. But in the confusion, Noah has swiped the bulldozer key and refuses to return it.

Jung-woo is alerted to the situation, and shows up on the scene and barks at his men to call the cops. Just as it looks like our team is about to be overpowered, though, Gong-joo comes charging in, leading an army of mothers.

The tables quickly turn and now it’s the administrators who are sweating. Moms pelt the vice principal with questions while Gong-joo explains that the mothers all wanted to come but were afraid to come alone, so she made the rounds to gather them in a group so they could arrive en masse. And here they are, spitting mad and not buying any of the vice principal’s feeble explanations.

It’s Noah who’s the angriest and most forceful in arguing back, countering every excuse with facts. He’s gathered research and evidence proving that the materials used to construct the cracking walls were inferior.

“This is a school that children attend to study!” Noah says with righteous indignation. “Is it reasonable to make a school out of garbage cement?!” The mothers join him in an angry chorus.

Kang-ja joins in as well to charge the administrators for refusing to take responsibility at every level, and for corrupt business practices that compounded the shoddy construction.

Noah has one final nail to hammer into the coffin, and presents a voice recording — it’s a confession from the foreman, of how this is the worst project he’s ever seen, and how he was told to do dangerous things. It’s damning, and Jung-woo and the vice principal gulp. There’s no way out of that one.

So Jung-woo grimly steps forward and assumes a contrite demeanor, promising to call in an experts to evaluate the safety concerns. If there’s a problem, construction will be halted.

The mothers cheer their victory, but Noah senses that Jung-woo’s got more up his sleeve and warns that it’s too early to call it a win.

Jung-woo doesn’t flip his lid until his team is in private, then orders the vice principal to get rid of Noah. But he has to be fired for an unrelated reason, since it’ll be obvious that it’s a retaliatory firing otherwise, and charges the vice principal to find a trumped-up justification.

He also wants Bang-wool investigated to find out who’s behind her, which Dong-chil agrees to do looking uncomfortable. Last but not least, they need to find out who was behind Jung-hee’s PC room comment-a-thon, though it’ll be tricky to trace those IPs.

Sang-tae has been quietly observing all the commotion at school and heads to the hospital to visit Ah-ran. He’s comically awkward about it, huffing that it’s not because he’s worried, only because he’s the school president and all. Well, at least he’s not insulting her or ordering people to beat her up this time, which for him is a marked improvement.

Ah-ran points out that her injury is related to the bad construction, which his father is responsible. Sang-tae gets tetchy at the accusation against his father and stomps off in a huff—just in time to notice Kang-ja arriving. He watches curiously as she goes in to see Ah-ran… and then his eyes widen in shock when Ah-ran calls her Mom.

Kang-ja fills her in on the latest, assuring her that they aren’t alone anymore. Her plan now is to tackle the three evils in one fell blow: Minister Kang, Chairman Hong, and Do Jung-woo. His father’s words about backstabbing friends ring in his ear.

 
COMMENTS

Well, technically she wasn’t really your friend in the first place, so it’s not like you’re really being backstabbed, is it? But I suppose the important point is that Sang-tae was starting to see the other kids as his peers, even if he still treated them like his servants, and a betrayal of that budding trust is going to set him back. I just hope that it won’t spin him so off-course that he’ll be an active thorn in our good guys’ side—not even for their sakes so much as for his. I don’t really like Sang-tae very much but I can feel some sympathy and pity for his character, and would hate for his strides (however puny and slowly taken) to be negated by this discovery.

But for me, the episode was Noah’s to shine—I love seeing him come into his own and becoming an adult. It’s a nice companion trajectory to Bok-dong’s, who is finally allowed to be the kid instead of fronting like a tough adult all the time, and I don’t think it’s any coincidence since Noah is shaping up to play a large part by being that protective force in his life. Who would have ever thought that that wimpy teacher would be any use in protecting the tough, aggressive fighter?

Yet it’s not the act of physical protection that spurs this dynamic shift, but the act of Noah taking on those other aspects of parenting that don’t entail physical care. Like Kang-ja told Dong-chil, feeding and clothing a child and sending him to school doesn’t qualify Dong-chil to be a guardian, even if it fits the legal criteria—that just puts him on the level of raising an animal. Noah shows surprising awareness (considering how unaware he’s been at points) by seeing when Bok-dong needs an outstretched hand or a literal shoulder to cry on, and does it without making demands for reciprocity. It’s pretty unconditional, and care without strings attached is something Bok-dong hasn’t known.

I also love seeing him share the crusade with Kang-ja, and not because he wants to help her but because this is a mission that burns him up inside, that drives him to be the man that it requires him to be. He may not be there yet, but he’s finding his inner steel, and if that process also lets Kang-ja rest a little and not be so alone in her fight, all the better. It was important for her to learn how to ask for help, but also crucial that she had someone so ready with the reply, “Anywhere, anytime.”

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